Wisdom Vault — onlinknow.co.za

at one time fall sick, at another brave the perils of the sea, again, know the meaning of want and perhaps die an early death. Why then repine? Knowest thou not that as the foot is no more a foot if detached from the body, so thou in like case art no longer a Man?

For whatisa Man? A part of a City :—first, of the City of Gods and Men; next, of that which ranks nearest it, a miniature of the universal City. . .. In such a body, in such a world enveloping us, among lives like these, such things must happen to one or another.

Thy part, then, being here, is to speak of these things as is meet, and to order them as befits the matter. LVII That was a good reply which Diogenes made to a man who asked him for letters of recommendation—* That you are a man, he will know when he sees you;—whether a good or bad one, he will know if he has any skill in discerning the good and the bad.

But if he has none, he will never know, though I write to him a thousand times.”—It is as though a piece of silver money desired to be recommended to some one to be tested. If the man be a good judge of silver, he will know: the coin will tell its own tale.

LVIII Even as the traveller asks his way of him that he meets, inclined in no wise to bear to the right rather than to the left (for he desires only the way leading whither he would go), so should we come unto God as to a guide; even as we use our eyes without admonishing them to show us some things rather than others, but content to receive the images of such things as they present unto us.

But as it is we stand anxiously watching the victim, and with the voice of sup- plication call upon the augur :—“ Master, have mercy on me: vouchsafe unto me a way of escape!” Slave, would you then have aught else than what is best? is there anything better THE GOLDEN SAYINGS OF EPICTETUS 137 than what is God’s good pleasure?

Why, as far as in you lies, would you corrupt your Judge, and lead your Counsellor astray? LIX God is beneficent. But the Good also is beneficent. It should seem then that where the real nature of God is, there too is to be found the real nature of the Good.

What then is the real nature of God?—Intelligence, Knowledge, Right Reason. Here then without more ado seek the real nature of the Good. For surely thou dost not seek it in a plant or in an animal that reasoneth not. LX Seek then the real nature of the Good in that without whose presence thou wilt not admit the Good to exist in aught else—What then?

Are not these other things also works of God?—They are; but not preferred to honour, nor are they portions of God. But thou art a thing preferred to honour: thou art thyself a fragment torn from God:—thou hast a portion of Him within thyself.

How is it then that thou dost not know thy high descent—dost not know whence thou comest? When thou eatest, wilt thou not remember who thou art that eatest and whom thou feedest? In inter- course, in exercise, in discussion knowest thou not that it is a God whom thou feedest, a God whom thou exercisest, a God whom thou bearest about with thee, O miserable! and thou perceivest it not.